Charlotte's First Thanksgiving

Another first for Miss Charlotte - her first Thanksgiving! It all started with reading her a board book about the Story of Thanksgiving, complete with a page all about Squanto (my teacher friends will appreciate this name more than most). Then we headed over to Nana and Grandaddy's house for the main event. We weren't scheduled to eat until about 4pm, but we went over around middle of the day so we could hang out and help get things ready. Charlotte was all decked out in her Turkey Day attire! The socks also have turkeys on them and read "My First Thanksgiving" and Charlotte also had a super cool turkey bib but I don't think we got a picture of that.


For a while we were the only ones there, but then we got the call - the eagle had landed and Steve went to the metro station to pick her up! Our friend Morgan was coming into town for Thanksgiving and for our 10 year high school reunion on Saturday. Charlotte had not met Morgan yet so we were really excited for her visit!


As the day progressed more and more people showed up, Charlotte ate a few times, and then it was finally time for the feast! Charlotte didn't try any of the official stuff because I am being a stickler to the "rules" and just feeding her specific baby food, but she did try something new - pears! At first she wasn't quite sure about them - I guess they are quite tart.



With each bite the funny faces faded away and before I knew it she had eaten the entire container! Charlotte was so patient while everyone ate. She sat in her high chair as Steve and I alternated putting a spoonful of something in her mouth. She was at the table for almost 30 minutes I think and not one peep!

It was getting late though and I wanted to avoid a meltdown so we made some to-go dessert plates, loaded up the car and headed home for bath and bedtime. Overall it was a great day and it was nice to spend time with the family. Here are some more pics from the day.


With Grandma and Mommy...

Spending time with Aunt Sarah...

Daddy time...


Here are a few cute ones of Cousin Gabriel too!

Amazing Flexibility

Ok, I just had to post this picture because I think it is so cute. Charlotte was playing on the rug and I had her practicing sitting up on her own. I look over and her nose is basically touching the floor! I tried to grab the camera because it was so cute - she was folded completely in half. She started sitting back up as I was taking the picture, but you get the idea. I guess we found our feet!



Oh...and here is another random picture of Charlotte checking out Peyton (the cat).



And yet another just plain cute picture I had to include somewhere...

Another orange vegetable and sippy cups

We've moved from sweet potatoes to another delicious looking orange veggie - carrots! Judging by these looks, I thought the carrots would suffer the same fate as the sweet potatoes - a push to the back of the pantry. But after a day or so, she warmed up to them and not much comes back out of her mouth! We are looking forward to trying a fruit next!


Really? Seriously? This is what you expect me to eat?


At Charlotte's 6 month appointment the doctor said to start introducing a sippy cup with water. Yeah! Another excuse to go to Babies R Us...I HAVE to get sippy cups, the doctor said so!! :) I actually ended up finding them at Target, but whatever, it was a shopping trip. I started showing Charlotte the cup and trying to make her little hands hold onto the handles. She obviously had a bit of an idea what it was for because as soon as I got it close by, her mouth opened wide. She is able to hold onto it pretty well, but doesn't like the feel of the sippy part in her mouth just yet. It is not as soft as the bottle and she still has to work to get anything out. Hopefully we'll get the hang of it soon. Or maybe we'll be like our super advanced Cousin Madeline and jump straight to a straw!! Here are a few pics of the sippy cup experience -

You want me to do what with this thing?

Ok, I guess i'll try it

Nothing is coming out of this thing Mom!!!

Portrait Innovations

Today was Charlotte's (and my) first experience with Portrait Innovations. I had heard good things about it and seen the cute pictures, so I was excited to get some professional pics taken. Although Steve is quite the photographer, it was nice to have lots of props and an army of people trying to entertain Charlotte and get her to smile.

Our appointment was at 10:30. I had read online and heard from others that they tend to run behind, but I was hoping that because it was early in the day this wouldn't be the case. We arrived about 10:20 and there were a TON of people there. It was hard to tell whether they were all waiting to have their pictures taken or not, but I later discovered that some were waiting for pictures, some were waiting to view their pictures and others we waiting for the pictures to be printed. This made me feel a bit better about how long our wait would be. Charlotte was well behaved as always. She had a lot of other kids to look at while we were waiting. I guess we got called to the photo room about 10:50. Oh...I forgot about the near poopsplosion while we were waiting! I caught a whiff and luckily it was before anything happened to the outfit. Let me tell you, it is tough to change a diaper with tights around the ankles!

We started in the room with the Christmas tree. Charlotte is just beginning to be able to sit up on her own so I wasn't sure how this was going to go. I would prop her up and hold her there and quickly move my arm away when I thought it would be a good shot. There were a few tumbles, but we were able to get a few decent shots of her in her fancy red dress, tights and dress shoes.


Caught in the middle of a fall!

With our sparkly black cardigan, and propped up in a boppy...


She was beginning to get a little fussy. I guess she wasn't too keen on being in tights, but they wanted to get a few profile shots so we stayed in the dress for a few more minutes and got some cute shots.




It was time for an outfit change! This silly first time mother had brought 3 other outfits to change into (Christmas casual, everyday dress and an everyday casual). After the first portrait session in the dress I decided that one other outfit would be plenty! So I changed her into the Christmas casual look because I just wasn't sure how the fancy ones would look and I still needed a picture for a Christmas card. All of a sudden when she was changed into her casual wear, she was all smiles and laughs. We moved to the other photo room and got some awesome shots with the white backdrop.




She wasn't too thrilled with the chair or the other backdrop though...




After we wrapped up the portrait session, it was time to pick the shots that I liked. This was extremely difficult! They sit you down in front of a huge screen and walk you through all the pictures they took. It is actually a pretty neat process they take you through, gradually narrowing down the group, and the price is always displayed in the top corner so you have an idea of what you might be spending. They took about 35 pictures, and the photographer/saleswoman showed me that if I wanted three sheets of each of the pictures, plus the 9.95 favorite pose package, plus some other "freebies", the total would be $528! WHAT??? I wonder if anyone has ever gotten the entire group of pictures before. That is nuts!

Anyways, we (me with help from my Mom) slowly went through and picked the poses that we liked best. We had to go back through a couple of times because I was trying to get down to a "reasonable" amount of money. I had come in with a number in my head and I was doing my best to stick with it. I felt like I was at the eye doctor's office looking at a set of 2 pictures - A or B, B or C, C or D...

I finally got down to pretty close to my loosely set budget. Actually, before tax it was under my budget. Darn those taxes! :) I basically wanted to spend enough to get the pictures on CD. I did that and a tad bit more.

After we chose the pictures we wanted we waited about another 20 minutes or so for them to be printed. Luckily by this time Charlotte had fallen asleep on her Nana's shoulder and was oblivious to the fact that is was just about time for her to eat. She woke up right as they were handing me the pictures and we went on our way. Perfect little child as always!

On second thought

Maybe we don't like sweet potatoes that much...

Sweet Potatoes

We have been giving Charlotte rice cereal since her 5 month birthday. I was avoiding starting anything else new since we were traveling a lot during the last month, but decided to give sweet potatoes a try this evening. We had the camera ready for funny faces, but didn't get a whole lot of material. She evidently didn't mind them too much, and was eagerly opening her mouth for another bite! Guess we'll have to wait for a green food to get some silly faces.

6 Months!

So our little Charlotte is now 6 months old! Well, she technically was 6 months old last Thursday, but she had her 6 month doctor visit today so I waited to blog until I had her latest stats.

Weight: 17 lbs 3 oz (75%)
Height: 27 inches (90%) - we are thinking that she was squirming around while they were trying to measure her and this number is a bit high. The technique for measuring is not really the most exact - lay the baby down on the paper, draw a line above her head, stretch out her leg and draw another line, then measure between the lines with a measuring tape. I just can't imagine a child of ours being in such a high height percentile!
Head Circumference: 43.5 cm (75%)

Everything checked out great and Charlotte was in a relatively good mood for the majority of the visit. You would think they would try to speed up the process for an infant's visit to the doctor as they don't really wait that well, but no! Wait in the waiting room, get called back to wait in the exam room, talk with the nurse, wait for the doctor, talk to the doctor, wait for the nurse to come back with the vaccinations. Are you getting the overall theme here...waiting!

The nurse who was going to give the shots took one look at Charlotte and said "woah, look at those thighs!" I guess she got those from me...one of the nurses in the hospital when I was born called me "thunder thighs." Nice huh? Not much has changed I suppose. I guess it is easy to give the shots in a plumper leg :) Charlotte did really well with the shots. The delayed reaction crying is sort of amusing to watch. But as soon as I picked her up she had recovered. She got three shots and another dose of the liquid rotovirus vaccine. She ended up with 2 Garfield bandaids on one leg, and 1 on the other. Very cute! By the time we got home from the doctor's office it was an hour and a half after our appointment time. Luckily Charlotte was acting sleepy and ended up taking about a 45 minute power nap.

Here is a pic of her bundled up in her cozy jacket sleeping away in her carseat. Mind you it only takes 5 minutes to get from our doctor's office back home...she must have been really sleepy!



These past 6 months have really gone by so fast! I can't believe how much Charlotte has grown and changed, and we look forward to continuing this amazing journey with our sweet baby girl!

CA Day 3 - Family Visit and Wedding

Since a lot of Steve's family lives in the LA area, we decided to invite a few of his cousins to have breakfast at the hotel on Saturday morning. Sandi had a chance to come to VA and visit Charlotte when she was about a month old, but Sara and Joyce had only seen pictures, so it was a great opportunity to get together. Charlotte was in a relatively good mood as she was passed from cousin to cousin for pictures!







After a leisurely breakfast, it was time to head back up to the room so Steve could get showered and in his tuxedo for the wedding. Because of Charlotte's feeding schedule and the fact that I hadn't brought enough milk for 3 feedings, I decided to miss out on the ceremony and just go to the reception. Alison was driving to the ceremony so she was able to pick me up and drive us over to Balboa Peninsula for the reception. It was a gorgeous evening and the reception was located at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club (obviously right on the water). The cocktail hour was outside and the weather was just perfect. The wedding party arrived via boat which was a really cool touch. The appetizers were also quite yummy....and guess who tried a crab cake, and liked it! That's right...ME! Oh...and guess who tried a bite or two of fish at dinner? That's right...ME! So I went from turning up my nose at anything that lived in the sea to a night packed with adventurous eating. Not sure if that is going to stick or not. I'm still not too keen on the fishies. :)

Aaron and Alicia looked so great on their big day. Unfortunately we didn't take our big camera along to the reception, so I have borrowed a pic from Alison...



The reception was a lot of fun. Great (and quite loud) band...our table was rather close to the musical action! Oh, and we had another Tar Heel at our table to counteract the vibes from the Dookies that were also there! :) But we were running on fumes and thinking about our early morning flight out of LAX, so we had to say our goodbyes and catch a ride back to the hotel. It was definately a beautiful weekend and we were so glad that we were able to make it out to CA to see Aaron so happy. And a HUGE thanks to my Mom for going all the way across the country, to the land of earthquakes, to watch Charlotte so Steve and I could enjoy all of the festivities.

CA Day 2 - Meeting Ethan

After we returned from our drive to Laguna Beach it was still only about 9 in the morning (this could be the LONGEST day ever!). I fed Charlotte again and we got a call from Chris and Alison that they were on their way to the hotel. We decided to wait for them to arrive and then all go together to get the tuxedos. A little while later we heard a knock on the door. I opened the door to see Ethan sitting in the floor in front of our room!



We were so excited for Alison, Chris and Ethan to meet Charlotte, and Charlotte had been looking forward to meeting Ethan her whole life (all 6 months of it!). Here are a few shots of their first encounter:





These next pics are from the next day when Ethan came back to our room for another visit, and dropped off some super cute socks for Charlotte!


Ethan making his move...

Love this one...

Charlotte seems to be enjoying the visit...



Ethan trying to pull Charlotte's sock off...

"What do you think you're doing with my sock buster!?"

"You're right, it's just a sock. I forgive you!"

Ethan telling Charlotte a secret...


After the visit, it was time to get ready for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Steve got ready and caught the shuttle to the church to practice his groomsman responsibilities. I was able to wait a little longer before the shuttle left for the dinner. I got Charlotte's bottle and cereal ready for Nana and I headed out the door. We got back around 9:30 and Nana reported that Charlotte did very well with her cereal and bottle, and was in bed by about 6! I probably could have gone to bed at that time too!!